Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Silent Spring

Silent
Spring is a classic, a powerful broadside against synthetic
pesticides.Now, more than fifty years
old, the book still packs a solid roundhouse punch.With one book, one woman enlightened millions
and spurred a loud outcry.One woman inspired
big changes. Many of the pesticides she
slammed have been banned or highly restricted.

Following World War II, Americans had big heads.We had won the war, invented a terrible new
weapon, our economy was booming, and life was great!We succeeded at whatever we tried.We were giddy with euphoria.Then, Rachel Carson rolled a hand grenade
into our dining rooms.Suddenly, Sunday
dinners at grandma’s looked far less delicious.What were we eating? Would it
kill us?

During the war, researchers working on chemical warfare
agents discovered substances that were highly toxic to insects.After the war, greedy minds became fascinated
by these super-poisons, and visions of big profits danced in their heads.Synthetic pesticides were toxic to morals,
ethics, and foresight.And so, a new
industry was born, and the production of pesticides increased five-fold between
1947 and 1960.

To control the elm bark beetles that caused Dutch elm
disease, two to five pounds of DDT were sprayed on elm trees.This killed the natural predators of the
beetles, as well as 90 species of birds, and assorted mammals.Worms ate the poison leaves, and the robins
that ate the poison worms quit reproducing.Elms kept dying.More elms
survived in places not sprayed.

To control gypsy moths, a million acres a year were sprayed
with DDT.Sprayers were paid by the
gallon, not the acre, so some places were sprayed multiple times.Bees died.Cows ate DDT grass and produced DDT milk that was consumed by DDT
humans.Regulators did not block the
sale of poison milk.At the end of the
expensive project, the gypsy moths returned.

To control fire ants, millions of acres were sprayed with two
new poisons: dieldrin and heptachlor, which were far more toxic than DDT.Newborn calves died after their first drink
of milk.Piglets were born dead.Opossums, armadillos, raccoons, quail,
songbirds, turkeys, livestock, poultry, and pets died.In the end, there were more ants in Florida
than before.

We know little about what these toxins do to the complex
microorganisms in healthy topsoil.Many
of them interfere with nitrogen-fixing bacteria, which provide an essential
nutrient for all living things.Some
organisms are wiped out, leading to explosions of other organisms.The chemicals persist in the soil for years,
and build up with each new application.Soil beneath an apple tree can contain 113 pounds (51 kg) of DDT.Old-fashioned arsenic pesticides keep the
soil toxic forever.

Yes, it’s a bummer that all spawning salmon died when New
Brunswick’s Miramichi River got sprayed with DDT, while the terrible spruce
budworms laughed at the embarrassed entomologists.When Ontario sprayed to kill blackflies, they
wiped out blackfly predators, enabling the fly population to explode 17-fold.The same thing happened in Florida, where
large areas in coastal regions are now uninhabitable because of hordes of
pesticide-resistant mosquitoes.

“Resistant” is a keyword in this comedy of errors. Big Mama Nature routinely produces organisms
that are resistant to insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, antibiotics, and
antivirals.We can throw one poison
after another at life, and life will become resistant to it. Winning the war on life is impossible.Resistance can develop in as little as two
months.The average time is three
years.Insects are reproductive
champions, and can promptly refill the land with resistant offspring.The breeding process in humans is much
slower, so it will take us thousands of years to become resistant to
pesticides.

Silent
Spring delivered two powerful messages.It alerted us to the nightmare world of pesticides.It also turned big floodlights on the
incredible incompetence of our experts and regulators.In 1960, almost everyone was blissfully
ignorant about the toxic chemicals in their lives.In those days, most folks still trusted their
elected officials. They trusted the
experts who told them that DDT was harmless, and chlordane was a wonder of
scientific genius.Today, for good
reason, we automatically doubt any statements made by leaders or experts
because they, too often, have little or no relationship to the full truth.

Carson did not believe that the use of pesticides should be
banned entirely, but she did recommend that we shift toward less toxic
alternatives, like pyrethins and Bacillus
thuringiensis (Bt).Not
surprisingly, malarial
mosquitos are becoming resistant to bed nets treated with pyrethin-based
insecticides, and many
crop pests are now resistant to Bt.

She was fascinated by research in sterilizing male bugs, so
that female bugs would not be able to tell the studs from the duds.Chemo-sterilants were used to render millions
of houseflies impotent.Male gypsy moths
found their lovers via sexy scents.Researchers sprayed this scent all over the place, and were delighted to
observe the flying lads falling deeply in love with wood chips that smelled
like hot babes.Ultrasonic sounds could
be used to kill blowflies, mealworms, and yellow fever mosquitoes.

About half of the insects called pests are immigrants from
foreign lands.Here, they were not
controlled by their natural predators from the old country.Carson recommended importing the predators
and parasites of notorious immigrant pests.Moving organisms from one region to another is a mistake that has often
led to unintended disasters, like the rabbits of Australia, the potatoes of
Ireland, smallpox, and so on.She
thought that it was OK for humans to try to sit in the ecosystem’s driver’s
seat.

Carson was fighting breast cancer as she finished her book,
and she died in 1964, two years after it was published.If she had lived longer, I think she would
have recognized the serious shortcomings of the anthropocentric worldview of
her era.Living like the masters of the
planet has been a reliable recipe for countless catastrophes, and it’s the core
reason why seven billion people are standing on very thin ice today.

Ecological thinking is the antidote.Forget control — adapt!Carson was intrigued by the brilliant rascal
Paul Shepard, who could have exorcised her anthropocentric demons, had she
lived longer.She quoted Shepard, who summed
it up nicely: “Why should we tolerate a diet of weak poisons, a home in insipid
surroundings, a circle of acquaintances who are not quite our enemies, the
noise of motors with just enough relief to prevent insanity?Why would want to live in a world which is
just not quite fatal?”

PS: Locust is the
story of how humans, for once, actually succeeded in driving a major
crop-destroying insect pest into extinction — unintentionally — by simply
living like civilized people.

4 comments:

The same kind of unintended consequences were the result: overall decline in health, millions of iatrogenic (medically-caused)deaths, and super-bugs that are resistant to anything we can throw at them.

The Antibiotic Paradox says that we're getting close to the post-antibiotic era. The downslope from Peak Energy will eventually pull the plug on agri-chemicals and industrial agriculture.

I've heard that hospitals consume more energy per square foot than any other buildings. I don't know if that's true.

The next review will be Plagues and Peoples, by William McNeill. It's a fascinating look at human history as a long dance of parasites and hosts. Humans can play a role as a disease - macroparasites that feed on the wooly mammoths, etc.

Recent findings concerning neonicotinoids (neonics) show that these insidious chemicals, like DDT, penetrate deep into the biosphere. It's not just bees that are affected: neonics persist in the soil, are absorbed by plants, and are present in seeds eaten by birds. The stuff is working its way into wetlands and rivers, affecting ever-vulnerable amphibians.

Re: John the Baptist. The "locust" he ate might have been carob pods rather than the winged insects. Indeed, vegetarians positively insist that everyone's favorite chocolate substitute was the mainstay of John the Baptist's diet. ;)

Hi! Yeah, our world is so loaded with chemicals today, it's amazing we're still here. According to the NRDC:

"More than 80,000 chemicals available in the United States have never been fully tested for their toxic effects on our health and environment. … For the 22,000 chemicals introduced since 1976, chemical manufacturers have provided little or no information to the EPA regarding their potential health or environmental impacts."

Of course, testing does not include the infinite number of mixtures the chemicals can create in the environment.

A search of the King James Bible returns 24 hits for "locust," and zero hits for carob. :)